Holy shit!!! I had no idea how hard it is to make a single nerd video. James you are the man to keep doing this for your fans, thanks for your patience! Also I was wondering for episodes where a lot of shit gets pretty fucked up, like the posters in crazy castle or the game cartridge in dick tracy, do you have back ups so that when you fuck something up its not gone or do you just say fuck it because you don’t think you’ll ever use it again?

Hey James! Great work! I’m an audio engineer from Mexico! If you need some help with the audio tracks I’ll be glad to help out! Try using a Compressor to save time in the automation of the audio levels! It helps a lot!

That was a very interesting video. It’s pretty amazing to see all the work that goes into just an average AVGN episode. I imagine the more complicated episodes must be a nightmare to put together and sync everything up. I do think that emulator recording would make the process a lot easier, but I can understand that it doesn’t capture the classic feel of being frustrated with a shitty game on your console (although they do make USB converters for NES controllers). I’m curious about how the special effects are done in Photoshop. According to Quicktime, this video was saved at around 30 FPS, so even a, say, 3 minute special effects sequence in a video like SMB3 must have involved individually editing a ridiculous number of frames. I know that Mike inks the title cards, but does he also do most of the artistic special effects for videos?

This was awesome. Loved getting to see what happens in the making of The Angry Nerd videos. Bonus score for liking Metal so much. Keep it up and good luck with all the projects including the Movie and the regular AVGN vids.

I’m so excited, you’re my inspiration, I want to be a video producer, I’m still being an amateur, I really love your job, I admire you and respect you, I’m from Mexico, my english is really bad, but when I see an AVGN episode I understand it from the first second to the credits, I really love your work, thanks for being my inspiration, You Are The Fucking Best Ever!!! as we say here: “Eres el Chingon de Chingones” XD… Long Life to the Nerd…

James, I’ve always appreciated your videos for what they are, I love the nerd video and pretty much every other one you have made. This makes me appreciate you so much more, for all your work and effort you put into these videos to keep us (your fans) entertained for all these years. Thank you! You have such a talent I hope you succeed in everything you do!

p.s. I used to own that Barbie game when I was younger, I cant even explain how much I hated that game, it didn’t make sense at all!

Thanks for finding time to do all the stuff you make for us, not just the nerd reviews, but the Overanalyzers, the tmnt stuff, board james, and even the you know whats bullshit stuff. I would just like to say that you are one of the most awesome people i know. Oh and thanks to mike as well. His game glitch videos are awesome.

You know, I’m always determined to try and make a show for my site, but seeing how much goes into what you do really discourages me from feeling like I’m going to approach that level of professionalism. I just use a simple capture card and a piss-poor microphone. I hear you on music keeping you sane, though. When I’m writing scripts or drawing stuff I have to listen to music. It doesn’t work any other way.

Wow, this is GLORIOUS. I remember the previous post about asking what people would want to see in a “making of an entire episode” but I didn’t anticipate this being so comprehensive and come so soon as the next nerd video.

All the comments about the Crazy Castle or the Halloween episodes taking upwards of 100 hours to make now have a better sense of every tiny detail that goes into making these. I think most people take for granted just what it takes to keep the series ‘fresh’ after so many years. Many people would have stopped short or failed to really keep as many fans around. Can’t wait for future content from Cinemassacre.

James, I knew there was a lot of work that goes into each of your videos, but wow! To think you do the majority of the work yourself. I was sure you had a small team of people that helped, but this is a real testament to your talent. Thank you so much for all your hard work. The sooner you get involved in mainstream film making, the sooner the world will be a better place.

Loved the insider view on behind the scenes. Would love to see some archival (or current, doesn’t matter) footage of you and Mike shootin’ the shit thinking of some funny stuff to use/say/have in the latest video while playing the game.

You should do a live session, where you talk on a webcam while fans are talking to you in a chat room, like on uStream. Would be a pretty sweet little Q&A session.

Couple things from me, first off, this is probably my most favorite video, and I’ve been following you since day one. Secondly, your archive section and your organization for EVERYTHING is amazing, your records make banks look pathetic. Third, how much money do you have invested in everything? All those games, systems, equipment, that’s gotta be over $100k right? Forth, I expected Mike to run into the room at the end there and slap you in the face, I have no idea why. LoL. Keep on rockin man.

I make videos as well, and it was a treat to watch this video. I was wondering if you used timecodes when you captured the raw game footage, i figured you must. I typically don’t when I make videos and it always bites me in the ass. I’m amazed that you keep all the footage you do archived and I’m amazed all those systems are plugged into one dvd recorder… that’s insane, I’ve got 5 systems plugged into one tv and that’s already a pain, much less doubling the cables to add a recorder. Keep making vids, I love everything you do, you’re the best James.

I have a question. IS it rare that you play a good game? I only remember Super Mario Bros 3 video that you made that was a good game. Keep up the awesome work and if you give up, i’ll come to your house and make your NES rape you

Wow James, I had no idea how much work went into your videos. Thanks so much for all the hard work! One question I just thought of. In the action 52 video, how many hours of game play did you have recorded? Like, that was 52 games! Did you play each game very long? I know you said if you had to talk about Action 52 again, you’d staple your ball sack to the ceiling but, I was just curious! haha. Also, I think Monster Party for NES would make for and awesome video!

Something that will really help out your sound problem is using a standard microphone. The microphone you have on your boom pole (the pole with the microphone on it) is using a shotgun microphone. A shotgun microphone is the same type microphone that is on the front of a camera, and if you have ever use one to film you will know that they pick up a lot of background noise, such as wind, or the sound of a motor inside of machine. I work at a local tv station and we film a sitcom that is mainly filmed in a small room such as the nerd videos, and we get a lot of ambient noise when we use a shotgun microphone. We have found that using a standard microphone like the one you use for the voice overs with the little fuzzy thing on the end of the microphone, they do not pick up as much ambient background noise and it would make it so much easier to manage when editing. I hope you will take this in consideration and i hope it helped.

I have 4 years following the series and I love AVGN, and I would like to pretty much thank you for this episode, as it has nice tipson how to make our own projects. James, you’re an awesome person and I want to thank you for all the effort you put in every video you make of this series only to entertain us.

I really enjoyed watching this video James! It was really interesting to see your process in making a nerd video. Give all of us fans a new appreciation for what it is that you do for us whenever you release a new video!

Well that was quite the awesome as fuck video. After this, nobody has the right to complain about a video taking too long. I love how organized you are with everything as well, thanks for the episode guys

Well… wow. That was very interesting, I must admit. I knew the episodes weren’t easy or quick to make, but I had no idea you were that much of a perfectionist! It’s great to see that you take such pride and professionalism in your work. Thanks for sharing that with us.

As a long time fan since your Angry Nintendo Nerd days, I really enjoyed this video. The Barbie mini-episode was fun too!

Hmm, now perhaps… the people that were complaining and asking where the episodes are at might humble themselves and quiet down a bit? Probably not, but we can only hope!

James, to help you under stand interlacing and field dominance, i learned from this website.http://www.100fps.com
Basically the original recordings are done in 30FPS with 60FPS of information where each field contains 1/60th of a second. When deinterlaced, you are essentially throwing out half of the motion data. NES games flickered at 60FPS when a character got hit, so when deinterlaced, either you will get an invisible guy or one that does not flicker at all.
Any who, keep up the awesome work.

Thanks for taking the time to make this behind the scenes episode, I really enjoyed it. I have been watching your videos since the beginning and have have enjoyed all of them. I knew you worked hard on these videos but I didn’t know just how much went into each one. No I have appreciate them even more. Keep up the great work!

Wow, way more time is going into these than I thought. I guess I’m kinda disappointed that it wasn’t more “live”, like actual reactions when raging at the TV. But I guess that makes you a pretty good actor on the other hand.

James, as a two year film school student, I’ve encountered many of the same problems, but I’ve mostly used the same process you did. The big difference being that I used Avid. Haven’t edited much since, so your vid made me nostalgic for old times. Should get back into movies…

I applaud you for making this video. I’ve always been curious what you, specifically, do for an episode. I imagined it was something like my experience, but a bit different.

What I’d like to know is, since this is a full time job, do you get to make your own hours? Also, does your wife enjoy your videos when they are still in the editing stage? Thanks!

Wow! I’ve learned so much about your editing and such from this video. Also, you have kick ass taste in music. Love Maiden and Judas Priest. I make and write movies for my own benefit and watching this video made me remember what a tedious process it is. But we do it because we love it. I’m also curious as to what your wife thinks of your videos. You seem like such a nice guy when you’re not acting, so I wonder if she approves.

Did you self teach yourself how to use the editing software or did you have some type of assistance? I myself making videos im always looking for better ways to edit and it just seems like I have no idea where to turn.

With the emulators, you do not skip parts of the game. But there are save and load states that allow you to save just in any moment you decide. That can really come in handy for you
1 – you could beat any game you’re reviewing way quicker
2 – if there are some moments in the game when you have to make a choice, you can just save the game before the choice, see what happens when you make choice A, then quick load and make choice B to see what happens

As for the keyboard part, well you can always find some device that plug your controllers to your computer

But hey, I know you have now a certain way of doing things and I don’t think you’re gonna change that.

Great video, James. I can really appreciate all the time and hard work that you have put into all these videos. Your process is spot on with how a lot of the work that goes on in the industry. Hell, your skills would be amazing in reality television (the few good ones there are, like the one I work on). One thing I hope you haven’t done is switch to Final Cut Pro X. Talk about something that is being trashed upon on a constant basis. Avid tends to be the industry standard, especially since it still supports multicam, unlike the newest FCP =/ But as I said, your skills could be put to great use over here in LA. If you do end up shooting anything out here, let me know. I would love to help you out with locations, story, editing, whatever you might need.

New may not always be good but when it comes to FCP, come the fuck on, did you use it all the way yet. That was my first one and editing like a boss has never been any easier than it looks, talk about a perfect update on a constant log.

I’m not sure if you were explaining it or didn’t know what caused it (I’m too lazy to go back and look), but when you were talking about the flickering TV problem, that happens when your TV has a different refresh rate than your camera.

At around 25:41, you’re talking about recording a solid music track and/or sound effect track. This is an instance where emulators would be a boon to you; most of the ones I’ve used have the capability to dump raw audio and video.

To be more specific, I mostly use emulators tailor-made for the creation of tool-assisted runs, which show games pushed to their theoretical limits if human skills were not a factor. For information on these particular brands of emulator, check out http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources.html

I thoroughly enjoyed this “making of” James, it’s the best I’ve even seen you do on a “behind the scenes” episode. I never knew you used to do voice overs for corporate videos. I’m sure that’s something you probably don’t miss at all, lol! Music is my saving grace as well. It’s why I am back in school at the age of 28. I figure if I can’t play on a professional level I might as well be a writer of it and a documentarian about it as well. Thanks again, James, I hope that everything you do makes you happy in your life. I know just watching your videos makes me happy. : )

Wow James, I really appreciate all the time that you put in the making of your AVGN episodes and all the other videos you do for the fans on Cinemassacre. I just don’t see how in the world you can keep up with the AVGN series while you’re working on the “AVGN movie”, “You Know What’s Bullshit”, etc. The making of the episodes were very interesting and I’m glad to watch anything that you post on Cinemassacre, James. Thank you very much for keeping up with the AVGN series and all of your other videos.

2 pointers for James, for the loud parts and music volume editing, you should try a compressor plug-in, this could end up saving you a lot of times instead of manually changing the volume every-time.

The other would be to use Sound-chips files from the Internet. They usually have the whole game sound/music library, you just use a player eg: winamp with the right plug-ins and just save is to a file and presto you got your music file in less than 5 secs.

Keep the videos rolling James, the wait makes it better in the long run for me.

Really awesome episode there! It was all very interesting to know the steps to make these videos, and the huge effort you put into the projects.
Thanks a lot for making these videos!
Long live the Nerd!

Awesome video! Really enjoyed everything about it. Just wondering why you record everything to DVDs instead of going straight to a computer and using hard drives to store everything? There’s probably a good reason I can’t think of, but it just seems like it might be easier to sort through later on.

Keep up the great work James and thanks for keeping the site booming with material while you’re working on the movie!